When you are the person making the rules why not follow them entirely?

One thing I noticed about creating habits is that once you miss it once, you miss it forever.
I remember a dear friend of mine saying: “If you start smoking once, than it’s always easier to allow yourself smoke again”.
Or “If you lie once, than the second lie will always be easier”.

He pictured a reality where once the rules (not smoking, not lying) were broken, it was easier to break them again.
If you think about it for a second, it’s true.

If we are the ones who create the rules, we should absolutely do our best to not find a justification for them and enjoy our shame moment.
This way we won’t break the rules again.

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Once I was in a beach, and with a friend of mine we wanted to get to a not so near hill that we were sightseeing.

It was distant, I don’t know how many kilometers, but to me it was far.
Like more than an hour.

It was an hot summer day, the beach was full of people and children screaming and we were just walking towards that green hill with trees.

We talked a lot about everything, and I remember myself looking at the hill after a while.
“Man, it’s far, it will take a lot to get there”.
But we didn’t stop.
We continued to walk and talk.

I didn’t have a watch with me, so time didn’t really count.
It was morning and I knew we would have enough time to go back whenever we wanted.

Again, the thought crossed my mind.
“How much till we get there?”
When I lift my eyes I realized we were halfway.
The distance from our starting point was beginning to grow and feel bigger than ever and the space between us and the hill was something “possible”.
If we did it half, we can do it all.

We continued to walk and talk.
It was almost 12 o clock and the sun was high and hot.
We were dripping, but we kept our walk steady and slow, without changing speed.

I remember thinking again about how far it was, but in some moments that thought changed and it became “how near it is now?”
And every step was a step towards that hill, and every moment I realized that we were really near.
That if I run, I could make it in some minutes.

It was within my grasp.

We eventually reached that hill, even though it seemed so far, so difficult, so time consuming.
We didn’t think about time, about effort, about how to get back.

We just walked and talked.
When we get ther we went up to the hill and saw the beatiful sea, and then we covered ourselves from the sun under a big pine tree to get some fresh air.

Then we walked back, it was early in the afternoon.

Sometimes you just have to walk and talk, ignoring all the unnecessary fear from your mind.

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Freedom is often a choice, that is true today more than in the past.
What strikes me is how not being free adds an incredible level of frustration to my own routine from time to time.

I wanted to take a deeper look onto this, so I thought
“What are the issues that may cause this?”
Here are some

The Need for Respect

We have all been there, there comes a time when we feel that the counterpart has no respect for ourselves or our work.

The first gremlin lies right here.
We want to get respect, to feel big.

The sad part? This need itself means we must grow up.

The Need for Approval

In these modern times work is often a matter of thought and mind.
So when I say “need for approval” I refer to the fact that we value so much our minds that we don’t consider the simplest fact: we might be wrong.

So, we seek approval of our idea or solution, forgetting the fact that we are not perfect, so before pretending to be right we should pretend to dig deeper into our thinking.

Rage or Vengeance

This is a tough one… rage might be a result of the situation, but it’s a very versatile enemy, it just flows back in without you noticing.

Once you start being upset, that single mood will continue to influence your thoughts, therefore changing the course of your decisions from there on.

Uncertainty

I for sure feel this very often.

Uncertainty, specially in a field that’s not your true passion, is a pain you can’t wash away easily.

Uncertainty moves the words: I don’t know about it, I’m not passionate to solve it.

It’s like being eager to stay calm.
Something’s not right.

Unhappiness

Can unhappiness in other fields of your life influence the others? Of course.
This is the reason behind most of the fights we take home.

Brene Brown talks about this in her course “The power of vulnerability” and it uses the metaphore of us putting on an armor for our day of work and then forgetting to take it off when at home, leaving our vulnerability armor on and fully operational.
Ready to attack any friend or family “enemy”.

so what?

All in all, I’m always more geared towards thinking that some of the frustrations that appear in a work-related environment are all about people and communication.

We, as humans, are excellent at organizing, even the worst people can do it.
But communication is on an entire different level that we, more often than not, prefer to ignore and leave behind.

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Every day we get news about a single app that made millions of dollars, a new program, a new tv shows, etc etc.
We are bombarded with information that screams us to be fast, because that’s where the money, fame and happiness are.
If you are fast you can make more money, you can build an empire.

Therefore everyone thinks of that as the solution.I’ve got an idea, I want to make it as fast as possible so I can make as much money as possible.
That, sadly, is really far from truth.

News Magazines must shows titles that capture the reader attentions, what they sometime miss to include is the full story, the struggle, the slow step.
It’s normal, it’s not an issue, but it’s our job to read behind the lines.

Many jobs, many empires, many digital successes, weren’t built overnight (some of them are, of course, but that’s not the rule).
They were built with a slow, steady pace.

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There are many reasons why we should share the joy or the beauty of the world.

Still, many of us avoid doing that, we prefer to stay silent, to watch, enlighten ourself but leave it at that, without letting the other part know how much beauty he/her brought into the world.

In the last years I realized how much important is sharing and telling how great something is when you find it.
If you do something normal, but a stranger passes by and tells you “WOW, it’s awesome!” wouldn’t you be very happy?
Wouldn’t your perspective change?

Sharing joy, sharing our enlightenment with the world is something that needs to be done to make people conscious of the good they’re making.

We are able to criticize, we should be also able to compliment as well.

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Every first step is difficult, challenging, but that part is the single most important reason why we should take our time making them slow.

In a world where everything is fast, gaining mindfulness and getting back in touch with the beauty of the slow life can be very challenging, but that will help us learn more during our first steps of “whatever we’re learning”.

Accelerated learning is possible, but I’m personally skeptict about how much of that kind of learning you retain over time.

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if you are faced with too many options chances are you won’t make a choice.
It’s not a matter of how good you are at deciding, it’s just that we,as humans, want to keep it simple.

In the online world everything gets even more complicated.
Let’s say you want to buy a product, but you want to make sure it’s worth your time. How do you choose?

Some people will have the 5-star wayout, meaning that if the product has a good rating of 5 star on any famous store (like amazon), then it’s got to be good.

But is that the final answer?
Chris Brogan once reminded me that you should decide for yourself, but how can we apply it while we buy online?

Personally I read a lot, I try to see where the issue of the product are by looking at many negative reviews, by finding the issue nobody likes.
Everyone has a different perception of how “good” things are made, so we must start and learn our vocabulary of “good”.

Then, I dig reviews, online reviews, but the ones I am most interested in are the long term reviews.

You know, it’s easy to make a first review, but once some time has passed you can really say if a product was worth its money.

Then, while you surf the net you see another similar product, which might seem perfect to you… and there you have it: another options to blow your mind.

PS: A good resource to note if you care about things that lasts is reddit bifl BuyItForLife